Bye Bye Buddy and Ta Ta Twinkle!

For their last day with us before Christmas, Buddy and Twinkle 'child-proofed' themselves so that we could carry them around all day. We each took turns at taking them to lessons, assembly, golden time and watching a movie. 

I think they had a fun last day! 😊

Festive Friends

We have been very lucky and received visits from our class elves again this year. We love when Buddy and Twinkle come to join us. We even had a visit from Santa (because the elves were mischievous!) and saw photos of him in our classroom on the SantaCam CCTV!

They've been up to all sorts in the classroom... hiding in our Christmas tree, hanging from our advent calendar, sitting in our chairs (even Miss Archibald's) & making a mini elf library.

Here they are playing scrabble! 

Poor Buddy is not very good at remembering his spelling patterns sometimes.

Snowball fight! I think they missed the snow when it all melted.

Scottish Celebration

This afternoon, we celebrated the end of our Scotland topic. We started with a Scottish Quiz about all of the different things we have learned. Then we did some Scottish dancing in the hall. We did an Eva 3 step and an Orcadian strip the willow. It was loads of fun. 

We had a mini Highland Games (in the hall unfortunately as it was too wet outside). Finally, we did some food tasting whilst listening to the national anthem, Flower of Scotland.

We tasted tattie scones, buttries, Orkney cheese, Irn Bru, clootie dumpling and shortbread. Deeeelicious!! We are proud to be Scottish.

Super sewing!

We have been sewing Christmas decorations in class. Some of us had never sewn before so it was a new skill to learn. We got pretty good at it and had to remember some sneaky tips to help us ("up and down, not around"!) 

We are so pleased with our decorations and worked hard on them. Have a look and see what you think.

Delightful Drumming!

Today, Miss Firth took her drums to school to teach us a little about being in Kirkwall City Pipe Band. She had her tenor drum and the big bass drum with her. We watched her flourish with her drum sticks and march whilst playing the bass. 

It was VERY impressive. We even had a go at marching with her to the beat and managed to (almost!) stay in perfect rows and columns. 

Miss Firth gave us a shot of hitting the bass drum and we could feel the vibrations in our fingertips. When Miss Archibald has a go, she said it vibrated right down to her toes. 

Thanks again Miss Firth!

Tasty Treat

As another part of our St Andrew's Day celebrations, we enjoyed some traditional Scottish food. P4/5 washed, peeled and chopped neeps and tatties to boil and eat (some of us made clapshot by mixing it together - yummy!). We served it with haggis, which is the national dish of Scotland. We learnt about what haggis is made of. 

Some of us thought it was very tasty and are looking forward to Burns Night where we might get to enjoy some more.

We also had some shortbread as a treat on Friday, a traditionally Scottish sugary biscuit.

St Andrew's Day Surprise

On Thursday, P4/5 were celebrating St Andrew's Day in class. We were learning to sing Scotland's National Anthem and looking at the countries National Animal and Flower.

We were incredibly lucky to get a special visit from Louise, in full Pipe Band uniform. She played the bagpipes for us and answered all of our questions. It was so impressive to see her play, and it must take a lot of puff to keep the bag full!

Thank you again, Louise! We loved your visit.

Super Scotland!

Today we were learning about the Scottish national dress, a kilt.

We were so lucky because Murray's Dad (Alan) agreed to come in and show us his full formal kilt. His kilt is made from the tartan design for his family name, Dundas. We looked up some of our own surnames to see if there was a tartan or not. There are thousands of tartan designs! We also learnt about all of the accessories that go with the kilt; the sporan, fly plaid, Prince Charlie jacket and waistcoat, ghillie brogues, hose, flashes, tuxedo shirt with bow tie and the sgian dubh knife.

Some of us chose a piece of the Scottish Kilt suit that we wanted to try on. It was very heavy. The whole suit altogether weighs 4kg 360g. We thought it must get very hot under all of those layers and Alan agreed. There was one bonus though... it keeps him cosy at winter weddings.

In the afternoon, we then started deigning and making some of our own tartans. We are going to think of names for them tomorrow. Here are a few of the finished examples...